Why Chelsea are wary of signing striker for €80m

Carlo Garganese

• 24 Sept 2023 17:49 BST
• 4 min read

Chelsea need to sign a new striker in January.

This has been abundantly clear in the opening weeks of what has been yet another difficult start to a Premier League season.

After a disastrous 2022-23 campaign in front of goal - with just 38 goals scored - things look little better this time around.

They have scored just five goals in six games and hit another blank in a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa at home.

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Nicolas Jackson is the current number 9, but while his all-round game has been promising, he is not clinical enough in front of goal. He has just the one goal this season and has been guilty of some bad misses.

Chelsea are already considering possible striker targets in January and one of the names on their shortlist is previous summer target Dusan Vlahovic.

Chelsea to return for Vlahovic in January?

Juventus already offered Chelsea the opportunity to sign Vlahovic twice in the summer transfer window.

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In June, Chelsea rejected the proposal out of hand.

The Serbian was then reoffered to the Blues at the end of July in a swap deal for Romelu Lukaku.

Talks went on for a number of weeks, with Lukaku agreeing a move to Turin. But Juventus and Chelsea could not agree on a valuation for both players and the deal collapsed. Lukaku moved to Roma on loan while Vlahovic stayed at Juventus.

Vlahovic’s start to the season with Juve has excited some Chelsea fans, who feel it proves he is the right man to solve the striker crisis in west London.

On paper, Vlahovic’s numbers are good. He has four goals in five games. This includes a stunning double in the 3-1 win over Lazio last week - these were two simply world-class finishes from merely half-chances.

But his overall consistency this season and his overall game is still not worthy of the €80m Juventus will request in order to consider selling in January.

While Vlahovic impressed in the 3-0 win over Udinese and the aforementioned 3-1 versus Lazio, he was poor against Bologna (1-1) and Empoli (2-0).

And then on Saturday he was downright atrocious in the humiliating 4-2 defeat at lowly Sassuolo.

Vlahovic misjudged a brilliant cross from Chiesa, which should have been a simple header home. He also miscontrolled a simple cross that would have led to another big chance. Then in the second half he screwed wide horribly one-on-one, even though he was offside.

The 23-year-old is usually a lethal finisher with a rocket of a left foot. But his ability to hold up the ball, brings teammates into play and connect with others has not been good enough since arriving at Juventus from Fiorentina in January 2022.

Most of the blame can be laid at the door of outdated Juventus manager Max Allegri - every offensive player has regressed or stagnated under the coach since he returned to Turin in 2021.

But that doesn’t mean that Chelsea shouldn’t be hesitant to pay €80m for a player who requires big improvements to solve the striker crisis at Stamford Bridge.